Going to Extremes
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GOING TO JULY 7, 2016 THE ANTI-GOVERNMENT EXTREMISM BEHIND EXTREMES THE GROWING MOVEMENT TO SEIZE AMERICA’S PUBLIC LANDS TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1. LAND SEIZURE EFFORTS: A SHORT HISTORY 3. PUBLIC LANDS DRAW ANTI-GOVERNMENT & EXTREMIST GROUPS 4. EXTREMIST GROUPS INVOLVED IN PUBLIC LANDS ISSUES 7. THE EXTREMIST IDEOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK: POSSE COMITATUS AND COUNTY SUPREMACY 9. EVOLVING PHILOSOPHIES: THE EXTREMIST IDEOLOGICAL ROOTS OF THE LAND SEIZURE MOVEMENT 9. LAND SEIZURE PROPONENTS WITH EXTREMIST TIES 11. THE MALHEUR STANDOFF & THE COALITION OF WESTERN STATES (COWS) 18. THE INFLUENCERS AND ECHO CHAMBER 19. IVORY, FIELDER, & THE AMERICAN LANDS COUNCIL: BRIDGE FROM THE EXTREME TO THE MAINSTREAM 21. CONCLUSION 25. 1EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The 2016 armed standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon provided the American public with a ringside seat to a disturbing trend on U.S. public lands: extremist and militia groups using America’s national forests, parks, monuments, and wildlife refuges to advance their anti-government beliefs. But these far right-wing organizations are not operating in a vacuum. To the contrary, the armed insurrection in Oregon and Nevada before—led by Ammon Bundy and the Bundy family—share the same foundations as land transfer schemes promoted by some elected leaders in states throughout the West. Both rely upon a philosophy based in vehement anti-government ideologies, both have connections to organizations that espouse armed resistance, both employ pseudo-legal theories to justify their actions, and both use scholarly support from conspiracy theorists and discredited academics. Our nation’s parks and network of public lands are one of our finest democratic achievements. Americans see management of public lands as one of the things our government does best. But over the last four years, politicians and special interest groups in 11 Western states and in Congress have tried to seize many of these places and turn them over to state and private control. The elected officials supporting state seizure of U.S. public lands couch their arguments carefully, but our research shows their close associations to extreme individuals, groups, and ideology characterized by anti- government paranoia and a pseudo-legal approach to the Constitution. Since the beginning of 2015, 54 land seizure bills have been introduced into Western states, including Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.1 At least 22 state legislators with direct connections to anti-government ideologies or extremist groups were the primary sponsors on 29 of those bills. 1. Sitting at the hub of the movement and functioning as the bridge between extremism and the mainstream political debate are Utah Rep. Ken Ivory, Montana Sen. Jennifer Fielder, and their non-profit, the American Lands Council. A close analysis of Rep. Ivory and Sen. Fielder’s activities, and those of other active land seizure proponents at the state level, shows how these efforts are a functional part of an aggressive anti-government movement that will grow more potent if reasonable Americans don’t take action. As The New York Times put it: Many conservatives—Mr. Ivory among them—criticized Mr. [Ammon] Bundy’s gun-toting tactics, but their grievances and goals “” are nearly identical.2 In the end, the crusade to give American public lands away to the states must be seen for what it is: the latest outgrowth of radical anti-government extremism, which mainstream legislators of both political parties should avoid. In this report, an update to the original version we released in August 2015, the Center for Western Priorities examines the extremist origins and foundations of the movement to seize American public lands. We describe how public lands issues attract extremist elements, including members of organizations like the Oath Keepers and the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, who use public lands issues to promote their anti-government ideologies. We show that the anti-government supporters of this movement are growing bolder as some elected officials are becoming more open about their support for extremists. Finally, we show how the underpinnings of the movement are well outside mainstream conservative or federalist thought. Below, we examine three aspects of the land seizure movement: IDEOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK: The land seizure movement’s ideology is rooted in extreme anti- government beliefs such as Posse Comitatus and County Supremacy, the idea that the federal government has no right to public lands and that the county sheriff is the final arbiter on any issue relating to their use. LEGISLATIVE SUPPORTERS: Legislators in ten out of the eleven Western states whose legisla- tures considered land transfer bills in 2015 and 2016 have direct connections to anti-government ideologies and/ or extremist groups that want to see the federal government unraveled or opposed by force. Western legislators also direct the American Lands Council, the most prominent organization advocating for the land seizure agenda. INFLUENCERS AND ECHO CHAMBER: Those making the case for transferring public lands are a small group of conspiracy theorists and pseudo-academics, including one who wrote the “least credible history book in print.” These so-called thought leaders, who include Alex Jones and Glenn Beck, also function as an echo chamber within the radical right. 2. LAND SEIZURE EFFORTS: 2 A SHORT HISTORY In what has become a “Sagebrush Rebellion” of the modern era, politicians across the U.S. have explored, introduced, and advocated for policies that purport to turn public lands and the valuable minerals under them over to the Western states, local governments, and private landowners. The state of Utah has led the charge by passing a law in 2012 demanding that Congress turn over title to the state’s 31 million acres of national public lands or face a lawsuit.3 Proponents claim that the federal government agreed to turn public lands over to the states upon entering the Union, and argue states could more effectively manage public lands. However, attorneys general in Western states have disagreed, including the Attorney General of Wyoming who wrote that the legal effort is “highly unlikely to succeed in court because its legal theories rest on weak foundations.”4 In 2015 Utah legislators nevertheless appropriated $2 million of taxpayer funds to hire a law firm to explore legal strategies for land seizures.5 In 2016, Utah state lawmakers approved filing a $14 million lawsuit, initially dedicating $4.5 million in taxpayer funds to sue the federal government.6 Supporters have also investigated more incremental approaches to achieve their goal. These have included: studies of the economic viability of giving land to the states,7 interstate compacts to coordinate efforts,8 giving local officials special authority over public lands they deem a “catastrophic public nuisance,”9 and attempts to chip away at federal law enforcement authority on federal public lands by asserting “concurrent jurisdiction.”10 The movement has been a notable presence in state capitols in recent years, although so far it has met with little concrete success. In 2015, a total of 36 land seizure bills were introduced in 11 Western states; only six passed.11 Notably, most of the bills that passed did not demand a transfer, but instead mandated studies of land management. During the 2016 legislative session, public land seizure proponents had even fewer successes, especially outside of Utah, which remains the only state where efforts have picked up any steam. Only one out of 16 public lands seizure bills passed in Western legislatures outside of Utah during 2016 (five out of six passed in the Utah legislature).12 3. MALHEUR NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE: SITE OF THE ARMED STANDOFF LED BY AMMON BUNDY JOHN MATTHEWS CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 PUBLIC LANDS DRAW ANTI-GOVERNMENT & EXTREMIST GROUPS 3 Extremist groups have been on the rise during the Obama administration. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) documented approximately 150 extremist groups in 2008, rising to more than 1,000 in 2013.13 In the American West, public lands controversies have been particularly attractive to anti-government advocates. The armed standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, led by Ammon and Ryan Bundy, is the most prominent, but not the only example. In Burns, Oregon in early January 2016, the Bundy brothers broke off from a peaceful demonstration opposing the jailing of two ranchers who were convicted of arson and poaching on public lands,14 leading an armed group to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Over the course of a 41-day standoff, the Bundys took their crusade further, stating that their overarching goal was to turn over public lands to private entities and get “the ranchers back to ranching and the miners back to mining, [and put] the loggers back to logging.”15 Of the 36 known militants occupying the Malheur, more than half held extreme beliefs about U.S. public lands.16 4. Gage Skidmore CC BY-SA 2.0 NEVADA RANCHER CLIVEN BUNDY GAGE SKIDMORE CC BY-SA 2.0 Before Ammon and Ryan Bundy, it was their father, Cliven Bundy, making headlines for his extreme views on U.S. public lands. Cliven Bundy, who owes U.S. taxpayers $1 million in grazing fees and fines dating back to 1993, garnered significant national media attention in April 2014. After the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) attempted to round up Bundy’s cattle due to his refusal to pay grazing fees, Bundy rallied militia groups that streamed in to defend him at the ranch, causing a standoff that nearly ended in violence.17 As Bundy’s self- described “on-the-ground” militia commander put it: We locked them down…We had counter-sniper positions on their sniper positions. We had at least one guy—sometimes two guys— per BLM agent in there.